ODER

2635 ODYSSEY

Horace, among the Romans. As employed
by English writers the ode takes either the
Pindaric form of strophe, antistrophe and
epode, irregularly arranged and contrasted;
or, as in its later development, the form of
a regular series of regular stanzas. The
former style is found in Dry den's Ode for
Saint Cecilia's Day, while the latter is seen
in Shelley's Ode to a Skylark. The English
poets who carried the ode to its highest point
of perfection are Milton, Dryden, Collins,
Grey, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats and
Shelley; among the greatest odes in English,
besides the two mentioned above, are Words-
worth's To Duty and Intimations of Immor-
tality; Shelley's To the West Wind and To
Liberty; Keats's To a Nightingale and On a
Grecian Urn; Tennyson's On the Death of
the Duke of Wellington; Burn's To a Mouse
and To a Mountain Daisy; Bryant's To a
Waterfowl and Lowell's Commemoration Ode.

O'DER, a large river of Germany, which
rises in the extreme southeastern part of the
country near the border of Galicia, flows
north, then northwest and into the Stettiner
Haff, a lagoon of the Baltic Sea, terminating
in an estuary of three arms. It is 562 miles
long, and is navigable the greater part of its
course. The principal cities on its banks are
Stettin, Frankfort, Breslau and Oppeln. Its
principal tributary is the Warthe. The Oder
is connected with the Elbe by the Kiel Canal,
and is an important link in the great inland
waterway of which it forms a part.

ODES'SA, a seaport on the Black Sea, the
largest city of the Ukraine, which declared
itself an independent republic after the Rus-
sian revolution of 1917 (see UKRAINE). At
the outbreak of tEe World War Odessa was
the fourth city in population in Russia, the
greatest shipping point of the most fertile
region of the country and the seat of the
Imperial New Russian University, which en-
rolled about 2,000 students annually. It was
also a great manufacturing center, and a
beautiful modern city of fine streets and im-
posing buildings. Odessa had a troubled
career after 1914. It was bombarded during
the war by a Turkish fleet, and after the
revolution, when the Ukraine made a separate
treaty with the central powers, it was the
scene of much fighting. It was alternately in
the hands of the Austro-Germans and the
Russian Bolsheviki, and at the close of the
war was occttpied by allied troops. Popula-
tion, 1930, 475,500,

O'DDT, or WO'DEN, the chief god of the
early peoples of Northern Europe, ruler of
heaven and earth, from whom all their other
gods were descended. His wife was Frigga,
and his sons were
Thor and Balder. In
Asgaard, the home of
the gods, he occupied
the highest throne,
from which he could
see the whole uni-
verse. Two ravens
sat upon his shoul-
ders, and these he
was wont to send ODIN

throughout the earth From an old

to bring him tidings manuscript.

of everything that took place. He was wise
and cunning, skilled in magic and poetry.
As a war god he held his court in Valhalla,
where brave warriors were carried after
death on the battlefield, to enjoy an eternal
life of feasting and fighting. His exploits
and adventures form the theme of much early
literature.

ODYSSEUS, odis'use. See ULYSSES.

ODYSSEY, o&i si, an ancient Greek epic
ascribed to Homer, in which are described the
wanderings of Odysseus (Ulysses), king of
Ithaca, on his return from the Trojan War.
At the beginning of his voyage he was
wrecked on the coast of Thrace, and in plun-
dering the town of Ismarus lost many of his
followers. Escaping thence, he was driven by
unfavorable winds to the land of the Lotus
Eaters, and from there to Sicily, island of the
Cyclops. With twelve companions, lie en-
tered the cave of the one-eyed monster, Poly-
phemus, who devoured six of the intruders.
Ulysses made Polyphemus drunk with wine,
blinded him with a burning pole and escaped
with his comrades. Henceforth he was pur-
sued by the wrath of Neptune, whose son the
Cyclops was. After losing all his ships but
one, he reached an island where dwelt the
sorceress Circe, who turned many of his men
into swine. When he left Circe's island he
sailed by the island of the Sirens, and after
successfully passing Scylla and Charybdis, he
reached Thrinaeia, the island of Helios. Here
Ms companions killed some sacred oxen, and,
consequently, on their next voyage they were
all shipwrecked and drowned except Ulysses,
who escaped to the island of Calypso.

After remaining eight years he embarked
im a raft, nis ships Laving been lost, but was